Can Apple End Its Fight With Union?

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jul 29, 6:54AM EDT · Published Jul 27, 7:05AM EDT

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Can Apple End Its Fight With Union? — © Apple Inc.. Paris (CC BY 2.0) by sabin paul croce

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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL | AAPL Price Prediction) has been in a messy fight with the union representing workers at its retail outlets.
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Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has been in a messy fight with the union representing workers at its retail outlets. Ultimately, it is not just about money. It is about Apple’s image with the public.

Apple workers are represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers and the Coalition of Organized Retail Employees. While it is an odd set of organizations to represent workers at an electronics retail store, it has been effective.

Apple workers at its Towson, Maryland, plant will vote on a tentative deal on August 6. However, this does not guarantee that the disputes will end. Apple’s stock still has a chance to spike higher.

CNBC states, “The tentative three-year agreement includes an average pay raise of 10%, limits on contracted employees and a severance clause, improvement in work-life balance and rules on transparency.” According to Glassdoor, Apple retail workers make $27 an hour.

As with most labor actions, including those against Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Starbucks Corp. (NASDAQ: SBUX), these can spread to other locations. This makes them harder for executives to manage and more likely to enter the public’s eye.

Apple has a reputation to protect. A battle with some of its workers threatens that.

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.